After the Curtain
by Holly Marsh
Summary: Based on Agatha Christie's "Curtain" and contains SPOILERS for that novel. Characters etc. are Christie's, not mine. Intended as a sort of mini epilogue, this is my version of what Hastings may have done after receiving that letter from Poirot.


**After the Curtain**

It was a somewhat indecisive Arthur Hastings who, two weeks after receiving Poirot's communication from the beyond, as it were, walked the ten minutes or so that it took to get from the station to the front gate of the cottage that was my destination. I paused to read the sign, ascertaining that this was the address I was looking for.

As I pushed open the gate and walked up the short path to the front door, I looked around me. The cottage was set in a small garden. Though I felt that Poirot would have disapproved most decidedly of the way in which the flowers seemed to have been allowed to roam unchecked about their beds, producing a brightly coloured melange of all shapes and sizes of blooms, personally I found the effect rather charming. It gave the impression that nature was free here, rather than being trapped and controlled by an officious gardener.

It occurred to me that this was a reflection of the character of the cottage's owner. Trapped and controlled herself for the greater part of her life, I could readily imagine that Elizabeth Cole - for I still thought of her by that name - would abhor any thought of controlling others, even plants. I remembered now that she had always shown a fondness for wildflowers. I recalled a certain day at Styles Court - _the _day, the day that had been the darkest of my existence. On that day, Miss Cole had pointed out certain flowers to me, though I had not been a very interested listener at the time. I had been too preoccupied with my own sinister thoughts. She had been kind to me that day, and I had sometimes wished that I could repay that kindness in some way.

Well, I was here to do that now. Except that I was not quite sure how to go about it. Once, what seemed like a very long time ago now, we had sat together in a kind of tumble-down folly at Styles, where she had told me her true identity. How miserable she had sounded when talking of the beloved elder sister who had confessed to murdering their tyrannical father. How desperate had been her outcry, 'It wasn't Maggie!'

I had wished fervently at the time that Poirot had not sworn me to secrecy, but left me free to ease her mind. I had wanted to tell her that she was right, that I knew for a fact that her sister had indeed been innocent, and her father's real murderer was someone else, a person I knew only as X. Later, finding her distressed and empty of hope, I had endeavoured to do just that, with disastrous results. I had tried to bring comfort by asserting that it was not Margaret Lichfield who had killed their father, and succeeded only in making things worse.

As I now knew, Margaret Lichfield _had _killed the old man after all. Nevertheless, she had not been entirely responsible, and it was to tell her this that I was now standing on Elizabeth Cole's front doorstep, though I had yet to apply my hand to the electric bell. Why? Why was I so hesitant, now that I was here, to fulfil the purpose that had brought me thither in the first place?

It had taken me two weeks to make up my mind to follow Poirot's written advice, advice that he had penned in advance before his death, having predicted not only my thoughts and actions, but my innermost feelings, in the manner only he could. I had finally made up my mind to do as he suggested, partly because I had little else to do at the time, and partly because I felt it my duty to offer relief if I could. And now here I was, I had come all the way down here to see Elizabeth Cole, and still I had not rung the bell.

Perhaps I should have telephoned, or written to her. Surely, a letter would have met the case. I almost turned right around and went back the way I had come, intending to do just that. Something, however, held me back. I have never been sure what that something was. A feeling, perhaps, that it would be foolish to return home without fulfilling the task I had come here expressly to perform. Or perhaps it was Poirot himself, his words speaking to me from the pages of that letter he had left, ringing in my ears as if I had actually heard him speak them. He had advised me to seek out Elizabeth Cole, and his advice had never failed me yet.

Whatever the reason, I found myself incapable of leaving, and so duly rang the doorbell. As I did so, I felt strangely as if Poirot were there beside me, nodding approval and smiling to himself - that queer, knowing smile that had so often irritated me, but which I so sorely missed now that he was gone.

It was some moments before I heard footsteps on the other side of the door. Long enough for my resolve to waver once again, before the door opened and Elizabeth Cole was facing me.

I had forgotten how beautiful her eyes were. They widened upon beholding me. Her face broke into what even I, dense though I may have been, as Judith was afterwards kind enough to inform me, could not mistake for anything but pleased surprise.

'Captain Hastings!'

'How do you do.'

'Whatever brings you to this part of the world?'

'I... um... well...' I broke off.

How did you explain your presence when you had come purposely to broach a painful subject with someone you had not seen for some time, and whom you had never known really well? I could not, I felt, very well plunge headlong into the matter. Nor did a mendacious 'I happened to be passing' seem advisable, for I doubted that she would believe me.

Luckily, however, it seemed her question had been a rhetorical one, for she came to my rescue almost at once by asking me in. Soon after I found myself in a small but comfortable sitting room with a cup of hot coffee and a plate of biscuits before me.

We talked pleasantly of this and that. She enquired after Judith, and I was glad to tell her that the last communication I had received from my daughter had been to inform me that she and her husband were living in perfectly happy discomfort in some desolate part of Africa, studying the properties and effects of the precious ordeal bean from sunup 'til sundown. My listener expressed pleasure at the news, and we fell to sipping our coffee in silence.

I suppose we had both known that the pleasantries we were exchanging were just that, and that sooner or later we must come to the reason for my unannounced appearance on her front doorstep. It was up to me to come to the point. I set down my coffee cup accordingly.

'Miss Cole,' I began, then checked myself. 'Miss Lichfield...'

There was a sharp intake of breath. I glanced at her across the table, and was shocked by the look of acute misery that the mere mention of her real name had brought on. I continued with difficulty, unwilling to increase her pain, and at the same time hoping that my tale would help to lessen it.

'I'm sorry,' I said, 'but I did come here today with a specific purpose. You see, a little over two weeks ago I received a communication from Poirot.'

Her eyebrows rose. 'From Hercule Poirot? But surely...'

'He wrote the letter before his death,' I explained, 'and left it to be sent to me after a certain time. Apparently he was afraid that I might be worrying that... well...' I broke off, feeling somewhat foolish as I was reminded of my dreadful, and in retrospect quite ridiculous anxieties.

'I understand,' said Miss Cole.

She said it sympathetically, and I sensed that her words were true. I went on, therefore, without further elucidating the matter. I reiterated everything that Poirot had told me in his letter. How Norton had manipulated people, how clever he had been in saying just the right thing at the crucial moment, even when he had appeared to speak without thinking.

'So you see,' I said at the end of my narrative, 'in a way it _wasn't _Maggie. She did kill your father, and yet you know, in a way she didn't. She would never have done it, if it hadn't been for Norton. He was devilishly clever.'

Her face had turned white. She rose and walked to the window, standing silently with her back to me for a very long time. I sat there, unsure of what to do for the best. Should I offer my sympathies? Or would the tactful thing be to depart quietly? I was just deciding on the latter course when she broke the silence. Her words, and the agonised way in which she said them, at once erased any notion of leaving from my mind.

'Poor Maggie,' she said, and then groaned. 'Oh... I feel so responsible. I ought to have realised, I ought to have seen it happening and prevented it somehow.'

'No, no,' I said quickly, hurrying to her side. I turned her to face me. She looked ghastly. 'You mustn't blame yourself,' I urged her. 'You couldn't have known. Norton was too clever. He worked on me, too. He almost succeeded. That day when he pretended to see something through those binoculars of his... I was ready to commit murder then. I would have regretted it afterwards, but it would have been too late. I would not have blamed Norton. I would not have blamed anyone but myself, because I was convinced that it was all my own idea. No one knew, no one guessed what was happening to me that day - except Poirot. If it hadn't been for him,' I acknowledged, 'I would have gone the same way as your sister.'

She stared at me. Suddenly her hand gripped my arm very tightly. She spoke hoarsely.

'Thank... thank God.'

Her vehemence startled me. I covered her hand with my own. 'Miss Lichfield,' I began gently. 'Elizabeth... you have been through a terrible experience. The thing is not to dwell on it. Norton was responsible for both your father's death and your sister's. But now Norton himself is dead. It's over. You must put it all behind you.'

'Yes, he's dead,' she said quietly. 'It's horrid to think what he really was. He had always seemed such a nice man.'

'I know,' I said. 'I suspected at the time...'

There it was again, that strange look that she had given me once before at Styles. I had not understood it then, and I did not understand it now. She sighed.

'You thought that it was more than that, didn't you? That I really cared for him.' She shook her head. 'I tried to make you realise then that you were wrong, but it was no use. Once you get a certain idea into your head, it isn't easy to get it out again.'

'Well... I... I mean to say...' I protested incoherently.

'Never mind, Arthur,' she said. Her face softened suddenly. Her dark eyes stared into mine, and she smiled. 'The important thing is that he will never hurt anyone we love again.'

**The End**


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